‘Would Dad want us to stay?’ Lamar Hunt’s Chiefs spirit permeates Arrowhead debate

Even as the Chiefs prepared to commemorate 50 years at Arrowhead Stadium in 2022, they simultaneously fixed their gaze on the next 50 years.

But as they began to ponder how to best honor the past and embrace the future — whether at the iconic venue or elsewhere — team president Mark Donovan had an essential question for the family ownership group led by chairman and CEO Clark Hunt.

At the crux of the matter then and now was something visceral in its own way to each of the four co-owners and children of the visionary Lamar Hunt, who commissioned the stadium he liked to call “my favorite place on Earth” — words the Chiefs would later incorporate in their Super Bowl LVII championship rings.

Could the family really give open-minded thought to potentially leaving The House That Lamar Built?

“There was a meeting early on with the siblings, and we talked about, ‘Are we going to go down this path?’” Donovan said Tuesday at Missouri Western State University as the Chiefs began training camp.

Before embarking on years of work to come, and counting, Donovan wanted to know if exhaustingly studying options beyond Arrowhead might be for naught.

Simply put, he didn’t want to engage that work just to have them say “we’ll never leave.’”

When he put the question forth from there — “‘Should we look at all our options?’” — the heart of the dilemma was summed up by one sibling:

“‘Would Dad want us to stay?’”

Lamar Hunt and the move to KC

Then two other siblings — Donovan preferred not to specifically identify who said what — provided at-least-to-now-enduring answers.

“‘Dad was the one who moved us from Texas,’” Donovan said, smiling at the reference to Lamar Hunt moving the Dallas Texans here after the 1962 AFL season.

Another, Donovan recalled, chimed in, “‘Dad would want us to do what’s best for our fans.’”

That thinking encapsulates both eras of the family, Donovan said, as the current one faces the daunting prospect of anticipating and meeting the needs of generations to come.

Challenge enough for any franchise these days.

But all the more momentous for an organization that’s played in five of the last six Super Bowls and won three while extolling ambitions of becoming known as the “World’s Team.”

Citing another of the early meetings that coincided with the dawning of the age of Patrick Mahomes and the abundant opportunities that figured to come with it, Donovan remembered Clark Hunt convening the group that would advise ownership on what to do.

Renovate Arrowhead once more? Or move to another site? — a notion that has emerged in the last year-plus as multiple potential locations in Kansas because of the state’s STAR bonds proposal.

“‘People in this room are going to make the most impactful decision in the history of this organization,’” Donovan recalled Clark Hunt saying.

After a “pregnant pause,” Hunt added, “‘Don’t screw it up.’”

What’s next for the Chiefs?

How that will play out seems like anybody’s guess at this point — at least anybody’s guess beyond the four people who will decide.

Through what he called nearly five years of “doing the due diligence, doing the work, negotiating the deals, starts and stops, big steps backwards, work your way back” dynamics, Donovan believes the Chiefs are getting closer by the day to a decision (although he tends to be playfully elusive when it comes to a timeline).

No doubt that’s especially because the current lease doesn’t expire until 2031 and because so much remains unclear about the financial elements in Missouri:

The state stadium bills incentive that was passed in early July could fund as much as 50% of a renovated or new stadium … but only if coupled with local financing, such as in Jackson County or Kansas City itself.

Meanwhile, the Royals, their half-century neighbors at the Truman Sports Complex, remain at least a certain part of the Chiefs’ calculus.

While the franchises are operating independently in the wake of last year’s crushing defeat at the polls, when they were tethered to each other, and nothing precludes the Chiefs now from making a deal with Kansas, Donovan also acknowledged that the organization can’t have a complete understanding of its capacities at the sports complex without the Royals declaring — and sealing up — their own plans.

(If the Royals were to opt to go to Kansas before the Chiefs, Donovan said he anticipated no impact on the Chiefs’ flexibility because they would be two separate STAR bond projects.)

The Royals are moving (probably?)

Although the Royals have repeatedly said there is no scenario wherein they remain at the sports complex after the 2030 season, Donovan’s words seemed to suggest that’s not a foregone conclusion.

Because the Chiefs’ assessment of the situation, he said, includes accounting for if the Royals “decide something else where they stay … (and) what if they extend (the lease?) If they extend, how does it impact us? Like, could we do a renovation in the same time frame if they’re still operating a baseball team there?”

If Kauffman Stadium is no longer there, he wondered, “when is it not there?”

If and when the Chiefs become the only tenant at the complex, Donovan said that “creates some flexibility for us that we haven’t had in the past,” and that potential plans have continued to evolve from the renovation the Chiefs had touted as part of the 2024 ballot measure.

As for somehow developing around the area, it sure seems unlikely the Chiefs’ thoughts have evolved much from the tactful way Clark Hunt put it in 2022: “In the past,” he said then, “we’ve just felt that the location wasn’t perfect for additional development.”

That’s in contrast to what the organization would figure to seek in Kansas, where it would have a chance to build all around a potential domed state-of-the-art stadium in the spirit of the multi-billion dollar venues they’re smitten with in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

As for the bottom line of the bottom lines, the Chiefs likely would need to spend $1 billion-plus toward any such stadium (which would figure to cost around $3 billion, all told).

If they go the renovation route, the total cost now is expected to be around a billion or more. It’s unclear what the Chiefs would spend toward that, but last year they had committed $300 million plus overruns to a then-$800 million project.

All of those specifics and plenty more beyond our headlights on both sides of the state line will be what Donovan and his staff ultimately present to Clark Hunt and his siblings.

Arrowhead memories that endure

The chairman was 7 years old when Arrowhead opened on Aug. 12, 1972, with a preseason game between the Chiefs and then-St. Louis Cardinals.

He remembers being there that day, albeit not necessarily understanding what he was seeing. And he treasures childhood memories such as Pro Football Hall of Fame kicker Jan Stenerud coaching him on the field and being alongside his father on many occasions.

No wonder in 2022, when Hunt first addressed the impending future, he said, “Certainly, my heart tells me that I hope it’s Arrowhead, right? Because Arrowhead is so special to our family.”

Even then, though, he added this: “The important thing, though, is that we find the right solution for the Chiefs and the community and something that can last for hopefully another 50 years.”

So no doubt Hunt is both sentimental and shrewd. And it might be surmised that his three voting siblings — Dan, Lamar Jr. and Sharron — have similar apparent conflicts to navigate.

How they come to process this will indeed be the most impactful decision the organization has made … since their father’s calls to move the team here and orchestrate the building of Arrowhead.

All at once, those moves now symbolize compelling reasons to stay put in the beloved stadium or make bold changes.

And that’s part of what has to be a quandary for a family whose legacy is significantly tied to Kansas City’s identity today.

Vahe Gregorian

The Kansas City Star

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Vahe Gregorian has been a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star since 2013 after 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He has covered a wide spectrum of sports, including 10 Olympics. Vahe was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his master’s degree at Mizzou.